Research | Forskning - peer review

Mainstream media frequently portray the Arctic as the next great frontier for critical minerals. This article distinguishes analytically between broader political discourses, journalistic frames, and specific narrative metaphors. Employing a deductive frame analysis, the study systematically reviews… Mainstream media frequently portray the Arctic as the next great frontier for critical minerals. This article distinguishes analytically between broader political discourses, journalistic frames, and specific narrative metaphors. Employing a deductive frame analysis, the study systematically reviews mainstream news media and selected grey literature using a set of pre-defined keywords to identify salient linguistic markers, followed by an in-depth interpretive analysis of how these terms are mobilized to produce meaning. By pre-selecting the generic frames of “economic consequences” and “conflict”' our findings demonstrate how the media operationalises these frames to make them highly salient in the coverage. These frames are reinforced through urgency metaphors, most notably the language of a “rush” or “race”, which serve to concretize wider geopolitical discourses of mineral “criticality” and national security. At the same time, the framing of the Arctic as a strategic resource frontier marginalizes alternative perspectives, particularly those foregrounding decolonisation, Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Read more

Research | Forskning - peer review

This article analyses how Danish newspapers portray Greenland drawing on Critical Race Theory, focusing on interest convergence and whiteness as a normative framework. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative content analysis of contemporary Danish media coverage of political, economic, and social de… This article analyses how Danish newspapers portray Greenland drawing on Critical Race Theory, focusing on interest convergence and whiteness as a normative framework. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative content analysis of contemporary Danish media coverage of political, economic, and social debates concerning Greenland, the findings reveal a consistent pattern of instrumentalization. Across most articles, Greenland is portrayed less as an autonomous political actor than as a strategic asset, while coverage prioritizes Danish perspectives and only marginally includes Greenlandic voices. This reflects interest convergence, in which recognition of Greenlandic autonomy appears primarily when aligned with broader Danish or Western strategic priorities. By contrast, whiteness as norm operates in more uneven, context-dependent, and subtle ways. The study shows that media discourse not only reflects but also actively reproduces systemic inequalities and colonial power asymmetries, shaping how Greenlandic self-determination is publicly understood and contested. Read more